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| Mountain Phoenix' family playing Sho |
Once in a while I go down to our basement to sort out old clothes and items we no longer use. Warm clothes and sturdy shoes go to Tibet. Old summer wear and kids' toys go to the Salvation Army or I try to sell them at a second-hand place and donate the earnings to a school in Tibet. My children love to accompany me on these cleaning-up operations as all sorts of forgotten toys reappear in the process and they play around with rediscovered toys while I sift through all the stuff.
During their latest basement adventure, our old Tibetan dice game set
came to light, which my dad had made by hand. He and my granddad used to play it
during happy family gatherings such as Losar, the Tibetan New Year. After they
passed away, the thing somehow landed in my basement. With no one in my
remaining family knowing how to play Sho I wanted to send the game to
Tibet. But before I could put the game on the Tibet pile, the kids spied it: "Mami,
di kharé rè? Khandres tsegorè? Ngantso tsenyi trosung – koooocheee!"
I explained that I didn't know how to play Sho. In my
eyes it was a boring pastime for old men perhaps comparable to Boccia, which is
what retired south European Polas play. - Well, if I didn't know,
surely Aba knew how to play Sho? They insisted on taking the game
upstairs to show their dad. To my surprise, he knew how to play the popular game
from Central Tibet. And so he started to teach the kids.
These are the items you need for the game:
- A dice cup, the Shophor
- Plenty of sea shells, the Shobu or Dribu
- A round pad stuffed with Yak hair wool, the Shoten
- An underlay as buffer when the Shophor with the dice inside hits the Shoten: usually a saddle rug or Taden
- Two dice, the Sho
- Three different sets of coins (9 per set) for each player - the Lakhay
The goal is to move each one's coins "home". On your way you
must eliminate the other players by sending their coins back to the starting
point or blocking their passage. Basically do things with your Sho Alter Ego
that you are not supposed to do in real life as a well-behaved Buddhist, ha,
ha! A very good description of the Sho rules is given on the website of Tibet Namchen Restaurant in Lhasa.
We also found a free Sho App created by a Japanese developer. In order
to sharpen their grasp of the rules of the game, the tactics and strategy, the
kids are now occasionally allowed to play virtual Sho on the iPad. Here is a demo from Youtube. It’s really cute with the winner being cheered
and accorded a good old Tibetan Khatag.
Technically, Sho is similar to a Parcheesi, a game I used to play as a
kid. But the real thrill of Sho is not the game itself but the theatre coming
out of the players during play. It’s packed colourful and humorous Sho
terminology called sho bshas or Shobshè. Herein lies the real cultural
wealth of the game because every region has its own Sho parlance, which is basically
non-stop banter and witty humour that you unleash onto your playmates while you
meaningfully shake the Shophor and let it hurtle down on the Shoten with your
pitch getting higher and higher as the dice cup gets closer and closer to
hitting the Sho-pad.
If you don’t have a witty saying ready, you simply go “dhig, dhig,
dhig” as these guys in this Sho video from Youtube making yourself sound a bit like at cockrow with your voice almost
breaking the moment your Shophor hits the Shoten.
Since it's so much fun to listen to Shobshè it draws a lot of
bystanders who watch the game and laugh along. If you are really good player,
they will say of you sho tshapo rtse gi
red ("plays hot Sho") which means besides good gamesmanship
you're also good at Shobshè.
In Sho terminology, every Shomig
or value the dice show is known by a different name. 3 for instance would not
just be gsum but “sugu” and 4 would
not be bzhi but “tsigi”; 5 lnga would be “kha”; 6 drug would be “lug”; 7 bdun would be “ri”; 8 brgyad would be “sha”; 9 we don’t
know but 10 bcu is "chu"; 11 bcu gcig is “doge” and 12 bcu gnyis is “jangpa”.
We don’t know yet what these codes signify and they probably vary from region to region but the thing is you have to be able to make up a witty phrase containing the
code for the value you are invoking when you shake the dice in the cup and the
cup then comes smashing down on the pad. So it’s something linguistically challenging with every region using their own local sayings around
these codes.
Since this is what gives Sho its particular appeal, my partner started to
call around to find someone who could teach him more about Shobshè so he could
then teach the kids. This is when we heard that there are little booklets on
sale in Lhasa containing the Sho parlance popular in Central Tibet. That was great news. These are cultural
jewels which need to be protected and people were doing it. So our next goal
has become to get hold of such a booklet and appropriate the new vocabulary so
we would be in a position to teach our kids the real thing: Sho jargon!
A really nice plus of Sho is that it is a friendly, not very
competitive game where the stake is reasonable such as buying the winner a
beer, on that level. Camaraderie and having a good time are in the foreground.
If you remember that Tibetans are sometimes capable of gambling away entire
homes, Sho is very reasonable. Sho is also a mobile game, which can be carried
with you wherever you go. It's mainly played outdoors on fine days for rest,
relaxation and fun. You often find people sitting under a tree or on a meadow
playing this old Tibetan game.
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| Parcheesi |
The other day, the Lhasan lady who lives in our neighbourhood, stopped by
to bring us some homemade sweets and share the latest news from the Tibetan
capital. When she saw how the kids got out the Sho-set asking their dad to play
and she switched the topic exclaiming: "Ta Pala-la rogpa yakpo rashag!"
She obviously thought he taught the children so he would have gambling
buddies to entertain himself. Where the lady comes from, gambling and
senselessly killing time is so widespread it's considered a normal activity.
But when she heard that he taught them the game so they could do simple
calculations in Tibetan, she was very amused.
So this is the story how an old Tibetan parlour game called Sho became
the latest addition to our collection of Tibetan language training tools for
kids. And this particular tool could even be used to teach arithmetic in
Tibetan on an elementary level. Once again I was taught better: Sho is not only
for laid-back old males after all. It could be applied to teach kids how to work
on their Tibetan without a major effort from the kids' side. Brilliant!
The crux is for you as the parents not to satisfy yourselves once your
kid has understood the rules of the game. The real challenge is to naturally let
the whole game take place in Tibetan language. So focus and prepare ahead. Make
sure you have looked up all the words you don't know yourself or ask an
authoritative native speaker. Then start to unleash the vocabulary on your kids
naturally while playing. They will absorb it without even knowing it.
Some parents worry that asking their kids to retain Tibetan is an
additional burden because children are already under pressure from regular
school. Some more utilitarian-minded parents are also saying Tibetan is not one
of the languages that look good on a CV. It's extremely important to fit in and
perform well wherever you live, very true. And something like business
administration looks definitely better on a CV than "Tibetan”, that’s
clear as daylight. I wouldn't list Tibetan as an asset either when it's not
relevant for a job. But I also say it's not a zero-sum game: Most of the time,
the Tibetan thing is not something we do for the job; it's something we try to
do for the family and the soul.
Even when Tibetan is not a powerful business language, it can still
have a positive effect on our overall ability to perform because
multilingualism is said to cause structural differences in brain networks that
enhance mental abilities. Just like a musician's brain can be altered by the
long hours of practice needed to master an instrument, in people who are
multilingual, biological differences in auditory nervous system appear and
enhance attention and even working memory. That's a promise worth continuing to
work on Tibetan, is it not?
And not only will your kids be multilingual but they are also said to
become very good at determining what is and what is not relevant. They have a more
resilient brain, are more proficient at multitasking and setting priorities. Perhaps
they’re also better at withstanding ravages of age as a range of recent studies
suggest. And they delay Alzheimer as they protect memory and are less likely to
have cognitive problems.
Are these not very practical, utilitarian reasons for parents and
children alike to keep our grip over the Tibetan language and deepen our
knowledge from year to year? - Forget about the worry that learning more than one
language will confuse a kid. It is an unfounded worry coming from monolingual
folks who lack imaginative power.
The dice is cast. I won't send my old man's Sho-set to Tibet. It wasn't
a good idea to begin with: They have more than enough gambling material there
already. Instead, I will keep the game here letting my partner use it as a
language and arithmetic training tool for our elementary age children.
With Losar around the corner the whole family will be together. After
many, many Sho-less Tibetan New Years, once again it will be time to zestfully
swing the dice-cup while murmuring magic words invoking defeat for the others
and victory for oneself. This time around, the players will be a lot younger,
but the groove will be the same.
Para sho, Para sho, Para sho!
Happy Losar everyone!
Mountain Phoenix
Tibetan For Kids - 10 Ways To Keep The Language Alive
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All written content on this blog is copyrighted. Please do not repost without seeking my prior written consent.
